Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 28
By Khalid Kazimov – Trend:
Iranian government through its draft budget for the coming fiscal year (starting March 21) has proposed to allocate $300 million for developing pressurized irrigation systems in the country.
Abdolmehdi Bakhshandeh, a deputy agriculture minister, has expressed hope that 200,000 hectares of agricultural area will be equipped with the modern irrigation systems over the fiscal 2018/19 year, IRNA news agency reported.
He added that over the current year about 150,000 hectares of land have been equipped with pressurized irrigation systems and the officials are making efforts to equip 100,000 hectares of land with such systems by March.
Iran's total annual water consumption is approximately 93 billion cubic meters, out of which about 92 percent is used in agriculture (86 billion cubic meters), 6.6 percent in municipality (6.18 billion cubic meters), and 1.2 percent in industry (1.12 billion cubic meters), according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
Employing modern irrigation systems would decrease the level of water consumption in the country which faces shortage in water resources.